In memory of Chris Freeman (11/09/1921-16/08/2010) Christopher Freeman who passed away on Monday August 16th 2010 was not just the founding Director of the Science Policy Research Unit (today the Science and Technology Policy Research www.sussex.ac.uk/spru) at the University of Sussex in 1966, he was, and probably less known to many, also the intellectual anchorage behind the creation of MERIT in 1988. He continued to be heavily involved in MERIT research for at least another 15 years. At the opening of the institute, and maybe to the surprise of many of the Dutch officials present, Freeman emphasized in particular the importance of the need for intellectual and financial independence from changing policy fortunes, and MERIT (and UNU-MERIT today) certainly cherished that advice over the years. It is twenty two years after the event, particularly moving to listen to Chris Freeman's speech at the opening of MERIT back in 1988. The other lectures at that opening were given by the late Ilja Prigogine and Zvi Griliches. At MERIT Chris Freeman was very active in getting involved in many of the first MERIT projects, too many to list here. But his influence on both staff and students in those early years was phenomenal. A whole generation of scholars and PhD students from John Hagedoorn to Jerry Silverberg, Patrick van Cayseele, Bart Verspagen, Rajneesh Narula, Aldo Geuna, Anthony Arundel, Rene Kemp, Adriaan van Zon, Paul Diederen, Theon van Dijk, Hans van Meijl, Acharya Rohini and many more were involved in joint research projects with Chris Chris Freeman speaking at the opening of and wrote joint papers with him. MERIT in 1988 And then there was of course Chris' influence in getting a number of crucial international projects off the ground which established MERIT's international reputation very quickly: the 1988 Pinter book on Technical Change and Economic Theory edited by Chris together with Giovanni Dosi, Dick Nelson, Jerry Silverberg and Luc Soete, and the many more which followed including the book with Giorgio Sirilli and Sanyaja Lall on National Innovation Systems, edited by Dick Nelson in 1993, which all saw the light here in Maastricht. In 1993, Chris also contributed with Anthony Arundel, Gerhard Bräunling, Paul David, Giovanni Dosi, Dominic Foray, Frieder Meyer-Krahmer, Robin Miège, Keith Pavitt, Pascal Petit, Keith Smith and Luc Soete, to the EC report : An Integrated Approach to European Innovation and Technology Diffusion Policy: a Maastricht Memorandum, probably the EU report which has kept most of its relevance over the years, setting out the grand challenges policy mission posed by environmentally sustainable development and proposing policies aimed at a more rapid diffusion of a green technology paradigm in Europe. In 1995 and 1996, Chris contributed with amongst others Gerhard Bosch and Manuel Castells to probably one of the most far sighted EC reports Building the Information Society for us All. In the Appendix below a full list is given of all publications of Chris Freeman while at MERIT. He will be deeply missed by all of those who knew him so well while he was at MERIT, both academic and administrative staff for his intellectual leadership, personal charisma and above all incredible kindness. Below follows a personal reflection by Luc Soete, a close personal friend of Chris Freeman with whom he set up MERIT in 1988, and a personal memoir by Bart Verspagen, who was a PhD student at the time Chris was with MERIT. Luc Soete, Chris Freeman and Wil Albeda, 1988 Chris Freeman: a personal reflection by Luc Soete It is with great sadness that I heard that Chris Freeman, one of the founding fathers of MERIT, a mentor to many of us here in Maastricht in the 80's and 90's, and a very close personal friend for over thirty five years, passed away last Monday August 16th 2010. Chris was born on September 11th, 1921 and on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Wilma Coenegrachts, Susan Lees - his secretary at SPRU - and myself decided to organize a birthday conference party. After his hip operation, Chris had some difficulty in walking and had decided for himself that he didn't like travelling anymore, so we took it on us to organise it with Susan's help in his home town, Lewes. It became a truly memorable conference and will always with Staffan Jacobsson remain for me the way I want to remember Chris. It was of course first of all memorable because of the date. Nine years after, it is probably easy for most of us to remember where we were on 9/11. I do remember that in the evening I was discussing with Chris, Wilma and Susan what to do with our birthday conference party. The actual timing of the conference had been planned on the weekend of September 14th till 16th 2001 in the White Hart Hotel in Lewes, the place where the previous Freeman Festschrift conference had been with Bengt-Ake Lundvall held on the occasion of his retirement in 19861. We decided against all odds to go ahead. The international travelling situation at that moment was pretty traumatic. We had many of our invited participants stuck in airports across the world. Some remained stuck such as John de la Mothe and Kurt Unger and couldn't make it, but most came. It was, given the circumstances, an emotional conference: tension was in the air, doubts about the future of the world as we had known it were on everybody's mind. We had asked Chris to choose participants: we just imposed on him the space constraints of the Mrs Nelson, Chris Freeman and Keith Pavitt White Hart hotel and it became of course 1 For that conference an impressive Festschrift was published by Roy MacLeod with Frances Pinter. very quickly incredibly tough for Chris to make choices. (Un-)Fortunately some people were not available those dates: Jorge Katz, Richard Nelson, Hubert Schmitz, Charles Edquist, Eduardo Albuquerque, Keith Pavitt, Morris Teubal and last but not least Alison Young who were all on Chris' priority list could not make it. We had structured the programme around different facets of Chris' academic contributions. In a first session, called the "entrepreneurial" Freeman with with Slavo Radosevic, Despina Kanellou contributions from Esben Sloth-Andersen, Pari Patel, Giorgio Sirilli, Martin Bell, Bent Dalum, Jan Fagerberg and Mario Cimoli, the focus of the discussions were on Chris's contributions to the measurement of R&D, the technological specialisation of countries and the national systems of innovation concept. In a second session called the "optimistic" Freeman with contributions from Carlota Perez, Paul David, Giovanni Dosi, Steffan Jacobsson and Franciso Louça, the focus shifted to Freeman's contributions on technological trajectories, techno-economic paradigms and long waves. In a third session entitled the "world" Freeman with contributions from Mary Kaldor, Slavo Radosevic, Sanja Lall, José Cassiolato, Gabriela Dutrénit, Lim Chaisiung, Alexander Veracruz and Mamo Muchie the debate centred around Freeman's contributions on global transition and development, newly industrialising countries and catching up, the failure of development studies, and the concept of development through innovation. The final session, entitled the "concerned" Freeman with contributions from Geneviève with Mammo Muchie Schmeder, Dominique Foray, Andrew Tylecote, Daniele Archibugi, Helena Lastres, Sergio Barro, Norleta Ariffin, Bjorn Johnson and Mike Hobday focused on technological unemployment, the Information Society, the green economy and the economics of hope and human development. And there were of course memorable dinner and lunch speeches from Frances Pinter, Bill Page, Bengt-Åke Lundvall and as the final, farewell speech from Chris Freeman himself. There are few conferences where people don't want to leave to catch an early train or plane. This one was the one, I will always remember as the conference where people didn't want to leave, wanted to stay to discuss, talk and listen to Chris. For Chris as he made clear in with Gabriela Dutrenit and Alexandre Vera Cruz his speech this was his academic farewell, now it was to the new generations sitting around the table to take over. I remembered that back in 1986, he actually said exactly the same thing on his retirement. I wasn't convinced, as I had made clear in the paper I had prepared for the 1986 Festschrift in which I concluded my overview of Freeman's many contributions with the words: "watch out for Christopher Freeman!" How right I was. Saying goodbye to him, I promised I would come and visit him every year for his birthday. This weekend I was just starting to organize my next visit to Lewes to see him for his 89th birthday… The last nine years have nevertheless brought me and my wife Ingrid very fond birthday celebrations with him, Carlota Perez, Pari Patel and his wife and many members of Chris's family to cherish and to remember. My academic but also my personal life has been heavily influenced by Chris Freeman. I with Sergio Barrio first met Chris when I was a PhD student at SPRU back in 1975. Chris was not just an extraordinarily well read scholar, but he also had a unique personality which could probably best be described as what I would call "anti-elitist". This was clearly engrained in his political convictions but he was probably the only person in the world who would apply it so consistently to himself. To the dismay of Carlota and probably most of his friends, growing older he would stubbornly refuse any sign of the slightest favouritism, for example in getting his hip Frances Pinter and Carlota Perez replaced and thus waited and waited in the NHS queue for an operation.